Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1850 edition. Excerpt: ... Will ardent and amiable men form themselves into voluntary associations to meet any sudden exigency of famine and epidemic disease, when this sleepy and sluggish method of overcoming the evil can be had recourse to? As soon as it becomes really impossible to increase the poor fund by law--when there is but little, and there can be no more, that little will be administered with the utmost caution; claims will be minutely inspected; idle manhood will not receive the scraps and crumbs which belong to failing old age; distress will make the poor provident and cautious; and all the good expected from the abolition of the Poor-Laws will begin to appear. But these expectations will be entirely frustrated, and every advantage of Mr. Scarlett's bill destroyed, by this fatal facility of eluding and repealing it. The danger of insurrection is a circumstance worthy of the most serious consideration in discussing the propriety of a maximum. Mr. Scarlett's bill is an infallible receipt for tumult and agitation, whenever corn is a little dearer than common. 'Repeal the maximum, ' will be the clamour in every village; and woe be to those members of the village vestry who should oppose the measure. Whether it was really a year of scarcity, and whether it was a proper season for expanding the bounty of the law, would be a question constantly and fiercely agitated between the farmers and the poor. If the maximum is to be quietly submitted to, its repeal must be rendered impossible but to the Legislature. 'Burn your ships, Mr. Scarlett. You are doing a wise and a necessary thing; don't be afraid of yourself. Respect your own nest. Don't let clause A repeal clause B. Be stout. Take care that the Rat Lawyers on the Treasury Bench do not take the oysters outof your...show more